On Saturday, July 9th, over 4,000 people partied on the backlot of Paramount Studios in Los Angeles at the 37th annual Block Party of the Concern Foundation. The event was so successful that it was packed like the Paris métro at 6 p.m. A record was broken with the amount of money raised that evening with the ticket sales, plus the live and silent auctions: a million and half dollars. Among the lots sold was dinner with me while I review a restaurant!

Because of the crowds, I couldn’t get to most of the 80 restaurants that participated, along with pastry shops, wineries, and bars. To see some of the participants, look at the photos in the gallery below. One of the most memorable displays was put on by Savore Catering, which cooked more than 1,000 eggs for 58 minutes in a 147-degree-Fahrenheit water bath to prepare their “farm egg on baked heirloom beans with béarnaise” to the hungry hordes.

To date, the Concern Foundation has raised over $43 million for cancer research and has awarded funds to over 600 promising cancer researchers throughout the United States and around the world. The non-profit, primarily volunteer organization currently funds 63 cancer research projects at leading institutions in the United States and abroad. The organization keeps administrative overhead to a minimum, so that over 95 cents of every dollar raised is used to provide salary funding to further the careers of gifted young cancer researchers whose work shows great promise but whose careers are not yet sufficiently advanced to justify major funding from government sources.